PHOTOS: Global Male Bonding Through Bodybuilding

Universal Hunks: A Pictorial History of Muscular Men Around the World, 1895-1975 shows rare historic images of bodybuilding as a world-wide phenomenon.

BY Christopher Harrity

November 01 2013 4:00 AM ET

When this photo of a group of Zulu tug-of-war athletes appeared in Health & Strength Magazine in 1903 just after the Boer War, it reflected British curiosity to know more about South Africa and the people who lived there. Treating non-white natives with respect was something rather new for Europeans, so this photo marks a change in thinking.